week. last one was 15 minutes took 20 questions. >> trump's approval rating has been ticking up since he was elected. we'll see if it keeps going upwards before the inauguration which will be his big stage to try and unite a very divided country. still very low. low es unpopular -- >> all right, that's hardball for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. tonight on "all in" -- >> the united states has only one government and one president at a time. >> president-elect trump injects himself into current foreign policy 24 days before he takes office. plus as trump suggests expanding america's nuclear arsenal, we'll look at how close the world actually came to annihilation. >> in the matter of two minutes, a third, fourth and fifth missile were reported launched. >> then the obama effect. >> i think i could have mobilized a majority of the

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american people. >> i'll speak with president obama's former speech writer about the state of the democratic party. and remembering carrie fisher. >> nobody recognizes you? >> just one guy who has seen it 12 times. >> a look back at the legends lost this year when "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. we are now 24 days away from donald trump becoming president, which means, of course, that barack obama remains president of the united states for the next 24 days. but you would not know it from listening to donald trump who has repeatedly violated a longstanding and quite important norm in american politics, one that president obama himself stressed in his first news conference just days after he was elected way back in november 2008 amidst the worst financial crisis since the great depression. >> the united states has only one government and one president at a time, and until january

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20th of next year, that government is the current administration. i have to reiterate once again that we only have one president at a time. and i want to be very careful that we are sending the right signals to the world as a whole that i am not the president and i won't be until january 20th. >> president-elect obama had a good reason to be careful, his words had the ability to undermine bush in the midst of that global financial crisis and hurt american interests in the process. donald trump hasn't just discarded that approach. he's been working directly with a foreign government in a concerted effort to undermine the current administration. on friday the united nations passed a nonbinding resolution demanding that israel stop building settlements in east jerusalem declaring them in violation of international law. now, the u.s. has long opposed those settlements particularly in the west bank as an impediment to peace though it has generally stopped short of calling them illegal in the words of the u.n. resolution.

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the obama administration could have used its veto power to block the resolution but instead abstained which allowed the measure to pass. before that vote, president-elect trump intervened to try to stop it, reportedly after direct requests from israeli officials posting on facebook, the resolutio should be vetoed. israel deeply appreciates the clear and unequivocal call of president-elect@realdonaldtrump to veto anti-israel resolution at the u.n. when the resolution passed away, israel responded with fury. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu pointedly saying he looks forward to working with trump and accusing the obama administration of orchestrating the u.n. vote, something the administration denies. here's the israeli ambassador making the claim. >> we have proof. i don't believe it. we know it. we'll share it with the incoming administration through the appropriate channels and they can decide if they want to share

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that with the american people. we obviously won't share it with this administration because this administration is behind it. >> the administration he's talking about, it's worth noting, finalized a deal in september to give israel $30 billion in military aid over ten years, a new record. as for trump he claimed in a tweet, the big loss yesterday for israel in the united nations will make it much harder to negotiate peace and vowed ominously as to the u.n., things will be different after january 20th. trump later adding the united nations has such great potential but right now it is just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time. so sad. i asked democratic congressman steve cohn what he makes of trump delving into foreign policy before he takes office. >> he should leave foreign policy to president obama. the constitution gives the executive foreign policy and certainly doesn't give the president-elect. and what president-elect trump has done i think is out of character with our traditions and america and it's disrespectful to the president

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and it's harmful to our foreign policy. >> what do you say to those who some of them are democrats who have been quite critical of the president's decision not to veto this resolution before the u.n. security council to say these were extraordinary times and it's a good thing that israel has an ally in donald trump? >> israel has an ally in barack obama and israel has an ally in the united states of america. we have supplied the president and the congress the largest foreign aid package ever to israel. we keep them one step ahead of others in the middle east with improved defense and improved offensive weapons. we have tried always to bring about peace in the middle east and people who are supporters of j street, as i am, are not capos like mr. friedman says. we love israel, we want israel to survive but we have a different thought on how they

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can get there. better to get through through diplomacy and a win-win proposition with the palestinians than through the force of take it or leave it. >> it strikes me when you look at the israeli government's reaction to this, have you ever seen anything quite like how the netanyahu administration has handled this in which they have essentially said we will no longer listen to the sitting president of the united states. we prefer to community kate w h communicate with the president-elect and basically saying the current administration is dead to us. >> from israel to the united states used to be a citizen, too. he gave up his citizenship and became israeli. that's okay to do that, but i have to question some of his positions. prime minister netanyahu, he basically laid down a gauntlet with the president and with others when he came to speak to congress and went through speaker boehner rather than

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approaching the president. he has, i would say, extreme chutzpah. and that's not what you should have as the prime minister of a nation who needs the united states as its friend and ally and it's almost like, all right, you've helped me so much and you've helped me now but now you're going out of office and i don't need to be friends with you anymore. it's a bad character trait on the part of the prime minister to be treating president obama this way and a bad character trait to be treating the united nations this way and to call in all of the ambassadors on christmas day was somewhat unfortunate because people do have religious holidays and the they were basically christian and to call them in on a holiday was unfortunate. he shouldn't have gone to donald trump and donald trump shouldn't have gotten involved in it. donald trump has enough to do with trying to get some people in his administration and to get a few entertainers to come to the inauguration. >> my thanks to congressman

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steve cohen. joining me now former deputy campaign manager for carly fiorina. what do you make of this sort of norm, the one president at a time norm? particularly it strikes me on matters of policy when this unified voice seems important. >> yes, so i think we do have one president at a time which is why the obama administration was able to abstain from the vote in the first place in a shameful foreign policy misstep. what donald trump was doing was stating his opinion which he said very clearly in his tweet that the u.n. would change on january 20th. >> so you don't think that -- >> he's not confused about who is president. >> you don't think there's a limiting condition? if donald trump tweeted i intend to go to war with china on january 21st. it would be a lot of fun. that would be okay with you? >> for a lot of reasons, it wouldn't be okay. >> we found a liting condition here. let's walk this hypo back until

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we hit pay dirt. >> the limited condition is announcing that we're going to war weeks and weeks in advance. that would be dumb. but in this case, no, i actually don't think there's a limit on the president-elect expressing their opinion, same as he would in the campaign. why does he somehow lose that ability once he's been elected? the one president at a time rule is not doing things on foreign policy or domestic policy that contradicts so that foreign leaders don't know who to listen to. that's not what happened here. >> he's done that. he's broken the one-china policy with the call to taiwan which reversed decades of longstanding precede precedent. in in case this wasn't just an expression of something on facebook, this was the president of the united states essentially intervening, calling on a vote to happen a certain way in concert with foreign leaders and also now you have foreign leaders calling the sitting president a liar and saying they will produce evidence to the next president which does seem to be an infringement on the one

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president at a time. >> i think that we're all getting a little sick of the mean girl foreign policy where you say something nice to an ally's face then undermine them behind their back when they're turned the -- >> do the $38 billion count in the mean girl foreign policy, the record setting military aid package pushed through by the president of the united states for israel? >> this was political payback because president obama didn't like t netanyahu came at boehner's invitation to speak to congress and said he was against the iran deal. take a moment and think about how cuba and iran have been treated versus israel and england to a large extent and you'll see that when america is treating its allies that way and treating its enemies that way, you will end up with a lot fewer allies and a lot more enemies which is why you see putin and assad walking all over this administration -- >> wait a second. that was quite a tour of the world. how do we end up in russia?

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i guess my question here is that you do think there's a limiting condition? if he announced war, that would be bad. what do you think about -- retroactively, it's funny, i was looking at the tape. barack obama had a transtransition period because it was in the depths of the worst financial situation. the current administration were doing things that were way outside the purview of what had been done before and that president-elect was quite careful not to step on the toes. was he wrong to do that or should he have been more vocal during the time? >> certainly during the campaign he was extremely vocal which is part of the reason that he won and good for him for winning, but this idea that you can't express your opinions after you've been elected is silly. the one-president rule is really about not calling, for instance, our ambassador to the united nations and saying this is president-elect trump. veto that measure. >> okay. well -- >> that's a violation, for sure. >> i agree and i'mlad that w

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agree, the president-elect should not b calling up members of the united nations -- have a great holiday. >> too. bye, chris. trump tweets about expanding the nuclear arsenal. how close the world has come to nuclear annihilation. we'll show you the man, the man, one individual, the russian dude who single handedly prevented that years ago. obama's former speechwriter joins me just ahead.

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president obama ignited outrage and debate by suggesting he could have won a third term running against donald trump. while the president is undefeated in his last two races, who is responsible for widespread republican gains at the federal and state level over the past eight years? i'll ask the president's former speech writer just after this break. and preservatives liquid gels delivers the powerful cold symptom relief you need without the unnecessary additives you don't. store manager: clean up, aisle 4. alka-seltzer plus liquid gels.

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president obama is perched in a very interesting place in terms of his legacy. his approval rating is high. as for the longest continuous stretch of job growth on record is country is near full employment yet the opposition has retained both houses of congress after eight years of steady dramatic gains across statehouses in the country. an interview with david axelrod, president ama id h still believed in his particular vision for america and thinks he could have prevailed again. >> i am confident in this vision because i'm confident that if i had run again and articulated it, i think i could have mobilized a majority of the

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american people to rally behind it. >> president-elect donald trump somewhat predictably responded if a tweet. president obama thinks he would have won against me. he should say that but i say no way. today trump tweeted again president obama campaigned hard and personally in the very important swing states and lost. the voters wanted to, all caps, make america great again. here's the thing. an entire generation are tied to obama's presidency. they're now reckoning with just what happened. joining me noun former speechwriter for president obama. i wanted to have you on because the interview with ax was interesting for a lot of different reasons. how is obama world processing what happened? >> i think we're figuring this out like everybody else. you know, i'm a little bit outside the orbit now in l.a., but i actually think what the president said overall was pretty articulate, right? it was a variety of factors that hillary ran a good race in many

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ways, but a lot of factors played into what happened. and i think we're reckoning with where we're at here which is, you know, we kind of -- we weren't focused enough as a party, right? this is not about obama, this is about democrats across country. we rested our laurels on this demographic shift and we would win the white house. we didn't win the white house, it turns out. and that maybe we had it backwards which was it wasn't what obama didn't do down ballot. it's actually the incredible feat that obama achieved at the national level. >> that's an interesting way to spin it. >> you're welcome. >> right? so there's two ways of looking at this. barack obama did something that no democrat had done since fdr, consecutive majorities of voters voting for him. amazing to think about that hasn't happened since fdr. incredible political feat.

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i wrote in a piece for the nation a hundred years now he'll be a titanic figure in american history. >> that's a big lead-up. that means whatever is coming is terrible. >> 900 state lgs you're seats, 27 state legislative chambers, 62 house seats and 11 senate seats. what that says to me is there was something happening before this election and do you think barack obama owns that? is he responsible for that? >> i think he's responsible for his part in it. i think that we -- look, no one knows. if anyone tells you the last person i'm interested in is the person who says they have all the answers because democrats acrosshis country,re in the wilderness and we need to figure out why. i see people coming up with reasons and anyone that says that's the reason, it's not true. you see this debate going on. is it too much of a focus on diversity at the white working class which was motivated by

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racism, maybe a little. you say maybe we haven't been too far to the left on economic policies? maybe. >> but here's my question, how much does that connect to this particular president's performance, his vision, the people around him. because what i encounter when i encounter people from obama world. i know them, i worked in the white house. they're extremely loyal and proud of what they accomplished. and there's not a ton of -- you see his interview with axaxelro there's not a lot of self-flagellation going on. not that i'm saying there should be. but that's the general posture. >> let's take some time to figure out what's going on here. something's going on here, chris, and we got to figure it out. but you know, i don't know. i think that it's hard to monday morning quarterback the policies. i think there's a lot of people saying oh, it's because barack obama didn't do x, y or z

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policy. some said it wasn't generous enough in the subsidies. we should have had a new deal. well, we did a massive stimulus that spent hundreds of billions orn tax cuts, infrastructure. we did this massive health care reformndt could have been more liberal and could have been more generous but we had a vice grip between this incredible pushback on the right and also this kind of timid middle of the democratic majority in the congress which, by the way, didn't come from barack obama. >> right, right, right. >> it was an inheritance of the people elected before. you look back on what some of the things that donald trump is saying now, we'll spend so much money, it will be bananas. joe lieberman stripping out a public option on a whim -- >> medicare and walked back on. it's funny because i was having a conversation with trump voters when we did our town hall and

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one was telling me his experience with obama care which was a legitimately bad experience because he tried to retire early as a 61-year-old individual with health problems. and i thought to myself, man, there's that moment where they could have happened. >> i will never forgive joe lieberman. he didn't pull it back. he personally stripped it out of the bill. we needed 100% of democrats on board because after an indelicate dance with grassley and the republicans -- >> so here's my question. one way of looking at it is political capital is like a bank account you draw upon to make investments or purchases. >> sure. >> and barack obama had a lot of political capital and he sure as heck used it. there's this tremendous line of accomplishments. basically do you think the trade was worth it at the end? >> yeah, i do. >> i thi the president thinks the same thing. >> i do. >> the question is -- >> let's keep in mind we are in this position because we're talking about roughly, what, 80,000 votes in three states. barack obama says i could have won. you know who else could have

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won? hillary clinton. >> which is why actually -- >> i'm not ready to throw out the whole -- >> i totally agree. that's why i think it's important to distinguish between this particular presidential election result and the stats up on the street. because there's something happening more broadly in the democratic party. >> absolutely. >> and then you have the 80,000 votes across three states which the lord knows that -- >> instead of thinking about it national instead of local, think of it as presidential against everything else. we have an extremely good, strong coalition this close to winning. >> six or seven majorities. >> you go to the congressional elections and the state, we have a problem. >> thanks for your time. up next we'll introduce you to the man who broke protocol to prevent russia and america from launching a flurry of nuclear weapons and possibly annihila annihilating humanity. do you know the story?

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for the better part of the 20th century during the cold war the world stood on the precipice of annihilation. that's something that everyone knew. since the cold ward there's a sense of that's in the past and we're fine now. but the united states and russia still have enough nuclear war heads to end life on this planet as we know it, which is important to remember. on sunday november 25th in 1983, we were one soviet colonel away from a full nuclear disaster. colonel stanislav petrov was working at a soviet military

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south of moscow when an alarm was set off indicating the united states had launched a nuclear missile against moscow which would strike in less than half an hour. here's part of that story reported by dennis murphy. >> colonel petrov was a cog in the chain of command but his read of the situation was still critical. he had all the incoming data. with the alarm blaring his men saying it's real, his computers saying it's real, the colonel made a decision way beyond his pay grade, beyond even his authority. he decided it had to be a false alarm because it simply didn't smell right to him. >> translator: this is not the way to start a war. already it was that a war starts with a massive launch. so i made a decision that it was a false alarm. i picked up the phone and reported that to my commander. >> and the more petrov thought about it, the more he convinced

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himself that he was right. after all, hethought, why would the united states fire just one missile? the colonel was still confident as he advised the supreme command to stand down. but at the very moment he was on the phone, the flashing start screen went off again. the satellite was seeing more missiles. a u.s. salvo. one then another. >> translator: in a matter of two minutes, a third, fourth and fifth missile were reported launched. >> could this be it, the big one, the nightmare come true? what would he advise his commanders now? colonel petrov knew very well that the soviet response might not be tit for tata city for a city. the russians could launch everything. the targets, american cities that his satellites passed over. new york, washington, chicago, los angeles.

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all of them were targets of what would have been the soviet response? >> translator: there's no question about it. the aftermath in the united states would have been horrible. >> even after the soviet computer system indicated those missile launches colonel petrov stood his ground insisting to his superiors that the soviet system had generated false information. his argument prevailed. and this one soviet russian figure is one of the great heroes literally of mankind. up next, charlie pierce on erica's current anfuture state of nuclear rationality. many people clean their dentures

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japan, to honor those killed in the u.s. nuclear attack there in 1945 and called for, quote, a world without nuclear weapons. president-elect donald trump argued by contrast, that the united states must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes. trump later telling msnbc, quote, let it be an arms race. we'll outmatch them all at every pass and outlast them all. we don't know who "them" is. he could literally inadvertently trigger a catastrophe. people could read these things in the worst possible light. jeffrey lewis told t"the washington post". the north koreans have a plan to use nuclear weapons very early in a conflict. they're not going to wait around. i have not thought as much about nuclear weapons for a long time as i have been thinking about them in the last few weeks. >> yeah.

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i am older than you are. so i was 9 years old and in grammar school during the cuban missile crisis which was my first general awareness of what nuclear weapons are and what they can do. at this point nuclear weapons are the genie that doesn't fit into the bottle anymore. we have what, i think the total is 7100, individual nuclear war heads. i don't even want to know the destructive capabilities there. and we're about to hand the launch orders over to a guy who can't stay away from his phone for 15 minutes. you've got, you know, india and pakistan have them. that's probably the most dangerous part of the world right now. so yeah, i think we're all good to need a refresher course in what nuclear weapons are all about. >> i was rewatching that amazing "dateline" bit, 12 minutes, incredibly story. he's basically making this case

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about rational action. he looks around. there had been an airline that the russians had downed, so there had been some international crisis. but he's largely thinking to myself, there's no reason the u.s. is starting a war right now. and it made me think how important just a general assumption of predictability and rationality is in the kind of theoretical decisions made around nuclear weapons. >> i think if you go back and listen to the -- the tapes are available now. if you go back and listen to the tapes of the deliberations within the kennedy administration during the cuban missile crisis you can hear president john kennedy making that same calculation in his head. why would he do this? let's figure out why he did this so we can figure a way to let him get out of what he's done. of course, colonel petrov had to do this with an alarm blaring in his ear and most of his superiors breathing down his neck and with about 15 seconds to make the call. >> we also have a situation where it is now the tweeted and

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then reported to mika brzezinski stated policy of the incoming president that we should have a, quote, nuclear arms race. and it's a reminder to me of the sort of false sense of security i think a lot of people achieved around nuclear weapons at the end of the cold war because people felt like they've been taken off hair trigger alert. and i envision it will be a much more front of mind political issue in the years to come. >> yeah. i think if you remember in the 1980s, there was another spate of nuclear terror both on the ground with the nuclear freez movement and in popular culture with the day after and war games and this burst of nuclear armageddon movies the way there were in the '60s with dr. strangelove and "on the beach." and that's because people didn't trust ronald reagan with the button or he was joking with bombing russia in five minutes

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or whatever it was. and it turned out at reykjavik ronald reagan almost gave away the store. okay, fine, we'll get rid of all of them, to mikhail gorbachev. whenever you have an unlikely president and god knows we have the unlikeliest president we've ever had coming into office on january 20, people's minds get concentrated wonderfully over the fact that we have 7100 nuclear weapons all as near as we can tell are functional. >> the point you make about reagan is an important one. the big sort of turning point in reduction of american stockpiles really does start with reagan and has essentially a bipartisan continuous drawdown and negotiated bilateral trajectory for american foreign policy across many different presidents from both parties. >> sure. and i think you also had, you know, you had a partner at least up until this point in russia, you know, the other major

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nuclear power, you know, with a willingness to cooperate on it. i don't know what's going to happen with the current guy in there, but you know it sms to -- we seems to as is the case with our president-elect seems to identify his national manhood with the number of war heads he has. boy, there's freudian levels of that i don't want to get into. but in any event, as you said right at the top, this is back on the front burner again. >> yeah. >> and anybody who -- i've lived long enough to have lived through it being on the front burner a couple of times. and like i said, it concentrates your mind wonderfully on what can happen if things spiral badly out of control. >> we should note that the president did negotiate s.a.l.t. ii. happy holidays and happy birthday. >> thank you, sir. >> all right. coming up, trump claims credit

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for the economy. what are you doing? getting your quarter back. fountains don't earn interest, david. you know i work at ally. i was being romantic. you know what i find romantic? a robust annual percentage yield that's what i find romantic. this is literally throwing your money away. i think it's over there. that way? yeah, a little further up. what year was that quarter? what year is that one? '98 that's the one. you got it! nothing stops us from doing right by our customers. ally. do it right. let's get out of that water. only new alka-seltzer plus justfree of artifici dsef. ally. do it right. and preservatives liquid gels delivers the powerful cold symptom relief you need without the unnecessary additives you don't. store manager: clean up, aisle 4. alka-seltzer plus liquid gels.

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carrie fisher, who plays the princess, nobody recognizes you? >> just one guy who had seen it 12 times. and he -- >> what's his reaction? he asked you out? >> princess! i first told him that i was the prize that the office had seen you heard it 12 times and he got a free day with the princess and a bucket of popcorn and he believed it. >> carrie fisher and the many other icons we lost in 2016 after the break. healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. the east and the west are mine. the north and the south are mine. all seems beautiful to me.

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way back in january 2009, the country lost nearly 800,000 jobs in just those 31 days. this time around things are different, to say the least. politico's chief correspondent put it right after the election, trump inherits an economy that's

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growing at 3.2%, record high stock and home prices. 4.9% unemployment and rising wages. the unemployment rate has continued to fall. yesterday donald trump not for first time in his life claimed his inheritance as his own success story. the world was glommy before i won, there was no hope. now the market's up nearly 10% and christmas spending is up over a trillion dollars. it was a big holiday season. holiday spending is on track to reach a combined $656 billion in november and december. i suppose you could round that up to over a trillion dollars. but claiming credit for it is still a stretch. there was one that says total 2016 holiday sales are expected to exceed $1 trillion but that was from september which is, of course, six weeks before the election. joining me now former president and ceo of the naacp, democratic political strategist and media matters. it is amazing to contrast the economy president obama the

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baton he got and the one he's handing off. but there's a real question about how much it matters. like does it matter basically what is happening on the ground macro economically or is it all just refractured through people's partisan perception? there's this piece out about elkhart, indiana, which is just interviewing people who the place is doing much better. yeah, we're doing better. it's not just because of president obama. and the news sources fox news rush limbaugh conservative radio show the biggest signs are the carrier deal he's not even president yet already helping the economy. do you think it will matter? do you think what happened on the ground matters? >> i think what happens on the ground absolutely matters. the real test for trump is whether he lives up to the standards he set for himself. he said he will only have two tests, will this create more jobs here and create better wages here? all signs show this is a guy who is bringing in people who actually don't think we should have a minimum wage. he said that he thinks wages are

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too high. he's contradicted himself. there are people who voted for him believing he'll create more and better jobs. now he'll have to do just that. >> this piece today about what happens, you know, economies are cyclical. we haven't had a recession in a long time because the last one was so deep and took so long to come out of. but presumably there will be a recession, then you wonder how the sort of blame switch gets flipped. >> i don't wonder. he'll blame president obama. he'll take credit for the economy and the bailout and all the things that led to the economy improving. he'll take credit for it. the problem for democrats is they need to fight back. they can't let his messages and what he says go out and not push back against these messages. i'm saying trump supporters, yes, they'll believe whatever trump says, most of them. >> part of the problem there it strikes me or has been the problem so far is the fact that this economy on a macro level

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looks much better than it was. then you zoom in and there's huge pockets of the cntry that aren't doing well and all sort of disibutional problems which is a position the democrats got caught in a little bit, this year being like telling people it's okay. >> right. just a quick, look at the economy bill clinton gave george w. bush. >> very good. >> democrats are very good at handing off robust economies and we cross our fingers. the last one was kind of driven into the ditch. you get the sense he's been surrounded by these sycophants for 30, 40 years. every trump organization idea that worked was his. he takes credit for it. every bad one he blames someone else. of course he's going to blame obama. taking credit now, he's kind of buying into this fake news idea. he's just going to create his own reality. every tweet, not one, has two or three lies per sentence. there are only 140 characters in his tweets about the economy are

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crazy. >> a lie left -- >> you know. >> it's going to be -- >> good point, though. i get your point. >> so this becomes this question about this sort of propaganda battle. >> yes. >> perception of reality. >> perception of reality or like my gut instinct always about politics is that like gravity exists and are people's lives getting better or worse. >> right. >> i don't know if that's true anymore. you take away health insurance from 20 million people and does gravity reassert itself? >> he has the best propagandaists on the right working r him. that's why bannon is there. at some point it actually matters what happens to real people. the problem that the mainstream democrats have right now, we've done a good job of fixing this economy, what they don't know how to do yet is how to explain to people how they're going to fix the troubles that are coming. in the silicon valley. >> or the trouble that people feel right now. >> all this tension over trade

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is really driven over by tension over what's happening, people's jobs are being replaced by technology. >> right, right. >> the only question in the silicon valley right now is if 20% of jobs disappear. and the party takes a lot of money from the valley and frankly doesn't have the -- the fortitude to really challenge and say -- >> right. >> and future of this country. >> if this is what american politics looks like at 4%, 4.6% unemployment and 2.2% growth what does american politics look like -- >> at 10%. >> right. >> you have a civil war in this country. i've always said that. >> please, let's hope not. >> people probably think that's a very cynical statement to make. but i think that this country does not do well -- we have a history of not doing well when people feel that their backs are against the wall. >> although one of the things that happened. >> there's a different possibility which is that people actually start to come together around their situation.

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>> right. >> and that's what we were focused on this bernie's campaign. >> right. >> but that takes leadership. >> and if the -- >> if the leader wantso divide. >> right. >> then there's no pushback from other people, then you have -- >> that's just it. is that we are ultimately going to have to choose whether we want an inclusive left wing populist movement or a fascist white wing populist movement. >> that's really stark in 1930s -- >> this is a 1920s kind of time we're in. >> politically, republicans control the senate, the supreme court, every state legislature. >> they will own it. >> it does go back to messaging and the propaganda. and eventually, you can't blame people who have gone for two or three years if unemployment suddenly spikes. >> one of the things we've seen is that there are such deep structural issues that people feel like their lives are tough, that there's a cycle of discontent against whoever is in power. they do own it now, the republican party. i'll ask you guys to stick

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around. lots more to talk about. new car. you're smart. you already knew that. but it's also great for finding the perfect used car. you'll see what a fair price is, and you can connect with a truecar certified dealer. now you're even smarter. this is truecar.

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my father's gotten these very expensive hearing aids. they fit right in your -- they're like $8,000 apiece. so he put them in his pill box so he would remember where they were. >> no. >> yes. >> so he took them in. >> he popped them the next morning. >> did he pass them? >> you have to listen. >> so he could hear what we were

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saying. >> now he hears out of his ass. >> he hears out of his ass now. >> the great carrie fisher. it wo just be true and that's unacceptable. remarkable screen writer best known perhaps as princess leia in the "star wars" movie died this morning. she was 60 years old. she had suffered a heart attack on board a plane. on christmas day singer george michael died at his home in england at the age of 53. his manager told the hollywood reporter he died of heart failure. 2016 has been a grueling year for artists. still to talk about this, just in music, just in music, first of all, carrie fisher was an incredible person and an incredibly talented writer if you haven't seen "postcards from the edge." headline of when she was

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conceived she was on the front page. no, seriously, like they're expecting. bowie, just these folks, bowie, prince, leonard cohen in one year. >> and george michael. >> and george michael, then also fightdog people growing up in new york city. it really was like -- obviously, every year you lose people. but this year felt like particularly music -- >> no, it's going to happen as this generation ages of bowie, george michael, prince, all died young. but the amount of iconic music. 35 top ten single just between those three right there. 300 million records worldwide. particularly in the '80s. and i think culturally for a very conservative cultural decade they really made a stamp, they really expanded and rewrote the idea of masculinity in pop culture, what's acceptable. they were all doing their own

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thing, doing it on mtv, on top 40 radio and opening a lot of eyes that were really closed in the '80s. >> also this year one of the most important kind of cultural figures in the history of american sports and politics, muhammad ali, who it's so funny because when you come to figures at different points in your own life. i wasn't around for all the iconic fights. i knew him as this sort of santa claus kind of figure. he had parkinson's and was beloved by everyone. when he died this year, had a lot of occasion to go back and read so much and watch footage of just how insanely polarizing he was. >> look, i remember -- well, and liberating for us as black men, he was the assurance that we could be men amongst men and the encouragement to go ahead and take the risk to do that. this is something who resisted the vietnam war and gave up probably the most lucrative

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years of his life. and frankly, we can only see him as santa claus because parkinson's had taken his mouth. but you can see the sharpness in his eyes. what i want to hear is the tape that was running through his mind, all the things he wanted to say but couldn't say. >> -- no cognitive with parkinson's. it's all sort of motor facult faculties. >> he was probably the most searing critic of this country's failings of his day. >> and probably the most popular one ever. right? like i don't think there was a figure who was both more popular and more radical at the same time. >> no. >> than muhammad ali probably ever in the country's history, right? i mean, the guy's politics we way out there compared to the jority of americans in, quote, the mainstream - >> in this country wherever you go, north, south, east, west, midwest, if you know that guy can kick your ass in any other -- >> that's something -- >> a whole range might not agree

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with your politics. >> one of the most consequential deaths this year was antonin scalia on the supreme court. i couldn't even believe that was this year, too. paus the year was so insane. a huge loss for the movement. one of the most admired conservative legal jurists in his time and probably a long time. but also in the very consequently political seat that it left open. >> exactly. the context in which he passed -- >> exactly. >> -- in the middle of this presidential election. so i think the notion that his passing didn't play a role in this election, i think, that's something that -- >> no, clearly became -- >> but i feel there's not been enough commentary. >> i totally agree. >> that this played in this election. i would argue that it mobilized the right more than it mobilized left. with the exception of maybe the choice movement on the left. but beyond that, there was not this mobilization that you saw. >> i totally agree and i talked

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to voter after voter who were sort of trump skeptical republicans who ultimately the reason they came home and fell in line was that -- >> the speech pennsylvania. thank you for joining me. happy new year if i don't see you again. the rachel maddow show starts right now with my friend ari melber in for rachel. maybe you're lucky enough to coming off a long weekend. maybe you hosted some family, maybe you went on a trip, maybe you engaged in cherished holiday tradition just like president-elect donald trump does. for 20 years he spent the holiday at his golf club in florida, although it's a little different for the residents of palm beach. >> along with trump's visits will come the road closures and tightened security each time the president-elect lands. there will be some